Knowledge is an ocean and a few drops just aren’t enough. -Unknown

A simple yet incredibly powerful phrase placed at the top hoping something may flow from mind to fingertips to screen. Well, it’s not so much the concern that nothing will flow forth, it is the concern of how I present it and the coherence with which I can present all these thoughts that fill my mind. Alhamdulillah.

I have deep hesitations when it comes to blogging and sharing with the world little factoids about myself and my everyday life. Maybe it’s paranoia or maybe it’s reality. Regardless, there are days I do feel compelled to share my experiences, thoughts, and insights to the world, moreso for myself but Allahu ‘alam, inshaAllah it could be of some source of benefit to somebody else. I need a venue where I can just present my thoughts and let them out, and possibly receive some feedback.

This writing comes after a beloved friend, who I dearly and sorely miss, wrote on her site the importance of just writing and to stop allowing those pestering thoughts to hinder you.

Alhamdulilah Allah blessed me with a marriage a little over a year ago and it has taken me from all I knew for more than twenty years of my life to a place more than a thousand miles away both in physicality and in experience. Alhamdulillah. I find new struggles everyday but at the same time I find new blessings everyday. Alhamdulillah–He indeed is the Best of Planners. Within the first few months of marriage, the hadith in which the Prophet (sallAllahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) states that marriage is half of the deen (or one’s religion) really started to come to light. I would hear this hadith of our beloved (sallAllahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) previously and would not truly understand its meaning. It took being within the experience to understand it, and I am sure I am still learning its full meaning and nuances.

My marriage showed me sides of myself I never knew existed–things that I would have never thought to bother me previously I found bothering me; aspects of the new relationship brought out so many different character flaws I would have never noticed otherwise. Over a year later, I still struggle with these flaws on a daily basis and I imagine it will be a constant process inshaAllah as most important matters in life are. It is only with my marriage that I am now aware of these flaws (inshaAllah I hope there are good things too that came out and that I can grow in these) and have to address them; I have to consciously work each day to not become frustrated, jealous, impatient and to be more grateful and gracious, forgiving, and understanding and without my marriage there would have been these little defects hiding in me never inspected. To develop a marriage and a wholesome, beneficial relationship with another, you have to push yourself beyond the norm and beyond the limits other relationships take you. To look at yourself completely and to correct what needs to be corrected, to fine tune the good, and to really develop yourself fully in your deen.

You have this other individual now who has so many rights over you and who you’re with the majority of the time, through the best of it and the worst of it. It’s this great realization with marriage that your actions and choices do not only affect you. While this is true of many and possibly all relationships, it is magnified in marriage. And when you reach this realization, you can begin to manifest it in all your actions and inherently it drives you toward becoming a better person. This is a realization I am slowly making and I struggle daily in making it a reality in my life.

May Allah ta’ala forgive me for anything incorrect I stated, as they are only from me, and any good and benefit only comes from Him. Alhamdulillah.

May Allah ta’ala ease the difficulties humanity is facing throughout the world and may He subhanahu wa ta’ala deliver them from it and grant them the best of this world and the next. Ameen.

"We have devoted our lives to seeking knowledge of the heart; knowledge that will carry us to our soul’s destination. Your minds have limits but not your hearts, for they are receptacles of endless capacity. But, you must open your hearts to this knowledge, as nothing may pass through what is closed.”

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.- Isaac Asimov